She travels in her own carriage and has attendants who wait on her antennae and foot.

When they arrive in a wire mesh box about the size of a shoe box, she will be in her own little box about the size of a deck of cards. There will be a plug in her box made of candy that is something like a hard marshmallow.

Since the bees in the package aren’t related to her, they will have the 3 days it takes for her and them to eat the plug to let her out to get used to each other and for the colony to become accustomed to her pheromones.

Queen pheromones are what keep everyone happy and wanting to come home when they forage. Bees are the prime example of “When Mama’s happy, everybody’s happy.”

When you look for the queen in the hive, she has a longer abdomen to hold all those egg laying organs, which are present but dormant in the workers.

She spends all her time laying @1,500 eggs a day and workers bring her food and make sure she is comfortable. Comfortable being 93-95ºF all year long.

Water is used to cool the hive in the summer. In the winter, they all crowd together in a ball, dislocate their wings and move their wing muscles as though they were flying to create heat by friction. The queen is in the center of the cluster. The workers circulate in to the center and out to the edge, similar to penguins.